


where the sun exists

by orphan_account



Series: Summer Pornathon '14 [8]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Books, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, M/M, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 07:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2460698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is twelve only, and Merlin is so much taller. In a country of demons, Arthur brings him books, and they talk of the sun. (Book Thief/Merlin AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the sun exists

**Author's Note:**

> A quick something I wrote for, I think, a pthon challenge? Angst.

“Describe the sun to me,” Merlin says, voice as quiet as always. They sit in the flickering light of the gas lamp, talking in the silence of the basement. Down here, their breaths and voices are the only sounds. “What did it look like today?”  
  
Arthur licks his lips, nervous about playing this game. He’s still learning—he has another book hidden underneath his jumper Merlin doesn’t know about yet—but he wants to make this good for Merlin. He knows he’s not good with words, knows he’s made to hold a weapon or to kick footballs or to run fast and far, but words are an enigma he feels the need to unravel, and if it gets Merlin to smile, then it is worth all this.  
  
So Arthur says, “Yes,” and huddles closer. He is warmer than Merlin, and he intends to share every bit of body heat he has. He clears his throat. “It was pale today,” he begins slowly, feeling inept. “The sky, I mean, not the sun. The sky was pale. Like _Mutter_ ’ _s_ face yesterday. Like it was afraid, or, or, like a sad painting. You could barely see the sun for all the clouds, and they were thick, and there were so many of them, making it all cold when I breathed.” The memory turns Arthur’s lungs cold on the next inhalation. He shivers. “But you knew the sun was there—I mean, it always is, obviously, but when I walked to school I was worrying about homework and I didn’t think of the sun, like you do, I mean, everyone always takes the sun for granted because it’s just there, right? So, then I stepped around a corner and there was just a bit of light on the street, but when I looked up the sun was _blinding_ me. It was so sudden, and I thought it was beautiful, like a bright spot of colour in the sad sky, and it made me so happy that I thought when I breathed in the air was warm, but...” Arthur shrugs. “I think it was just my imagination. The sun was there, yes, but only just so. To be honest, as soon as I saw it, it went away again.”  
  
His voice diminishes in the darkness around them, consuming despite the dim light. He keeps his face down, stares at his drawn-up knees and waits for Merlin’s laugh. Merlin always laughs after Arthur describes the sun to him. He doesn’t laugh at him, doesn’t laugh meanly: he laughs softly, lowly, with his throat, like he wants to laugh louder but restrains himself. Of course he does.  
  
When Merlin laughs tonight, it is soft and low. It is also frail; frail like his breath. It makes Arthur shiver again, but not from remembering the cool wind outside. He knows Merlin’s breath is fragile because of how gaunt Merlin is, too thin, sickly so, for a young man of nineteen. The chill of the stone he sleeps on has seeped through his skin and into his bones. It took Arthur three weeks to get used to Merlin’s breath. He thought (hoped) Merlin’s laugh would be spared. Arthur has the vivid idea of breathing into Merlin’s mouth. His own breath is still warm (yet), so maybe he can breathe the warmth back into Merlin’s body. The thought turns the shiver into a shudder, something warm, and strange, and unknown.

Then, Merlin murmurs, “I can see the sun perfectly.” Arthur takes this as his cue to glance up. He has to sit up straighter to be able to see; he is twelve only, and Merlin is so much taller than he is. Merlin’s profile is all parted lips, flaring nostrils, fluttering lashes. His eyes are closed, Arthur knows, to capture the moment of Arthur’s description perfectly inside of them. “Like a blank canvas an artist slowly fills with all his sorrow and loneliness, painting the sky a tender, intimate blue. Perhaps that of an autumn morning. Like it’s not quite awake yet, like it doesn’t really want to wake, because it knows what the day will bring. There are clouds, clouds all over its vision, dirty white and grey and just as sad it is, because it makes the clouds, because it calls the clouds. Maybe the sun has left the sky, and the sky is mourning after her. Or maybe something awful happened to the sky, and it can’t see the sun anymore because of what happened, and the clouds thicken and become darker until you can’t even see the sky anymore.”

Arthur listens, entranced both by Merlin’s words and the tremble of his lashes. The world around them has ceased to exist. Everything is still down here, underneath the earth, and they are like a secret, undiscovered, solely each other’s. It is a wonder Arthur locks into his heart, even though he knows how wrong it is.

“But the sun is always there, you see,” Merlin continues, voice wearing in and out of his throat thinly. “She’s just waiting for the sky to notice her. She’s right in the sky along with it, but the sky can’t see her. So she fights against all the clouds, and sometimes she manages to break through and give the sky a bit of her warmth so the sky glows and basks in her beauty. It’s just sometimes, and not often, but when she does, her presence gives the sky enough strength to continue, enough reason to not break in on itself and let the world vanish underneath its tears. So the sky keeps going, and it keeps waiting for the sun, because it knows the sun will always be there, and because it needs the sun to be there with itself.”

When Merlin finishes, there is a heaviness in Arthur’s chest. His throat tightens, working against something unnameable. He stares at Merlin’s face, and when Merlin tilts his head to Arthur just so, his eyes open slightly, and his mouth curls into a small smile.

From nowhere, slowly, Arthur thinks, with a startling clarity: _I didn’t describe the sun. I described Merlin._

He doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge, so he shifts awkwardly underneath the blanket and gives back a hesitant smile of his own. His chest is fluttering wildly despite the cold stone underneath his bottom, all hot and wild, like something untameable. Stupidly, Arthur thinks, he doesn’t want it to be tamed. He wants it to find roots in the earth so it can grow, but that is another thought so dangerous and exhilarating that he shuts down on it.

“Yeah,” he says instead, belatedly, clearing his throat. “Just what I said, right?”

Merlin’s laugh time is loud, stuttering, and he clamps a hand over his mouth immediately. He dives underneath the blanket to muffle his sounds, and Arthur joins right in. They snicker away in the basement under the blankets, and momentarily forget that theirs is a village governed by a country of demons. They forget death and darkness and persecution and find their own little home. There is nothing else now, no time, no space. Only them, and this.

“Merlin?” Arthur asks at last, hushed. “I’ve got something.”

Merlin raises his eyebrows, looks at Arthur expectantly. “Yes?”

Arthur pulls out the book from underneath his jumper, shows it to Merlin. “My little book thief,” Merlin murmurs. His face is pale and sharp, but his smile is small and pleased and proud. It’s here, it exists, it’s alive, and it’s for Arthur.

Whatever it takes to keep it there, Arthur knows he will do it.


End file.
